Public Comment
Comments provided on: June 24, 2026
Comments provided to: NIH National Library of Medicine
Description: The MRCT Center submitted a public comment in response to the NIH National Library of Medicine’s request for information, “Future Directions for the NLM Information Resource Grants (G08) Program.” The comment affirms strong support for NLM’s mission and the trustworthy resources it offers through PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov, GenBank, and MedlinePlus, and proposes several ways to expand the G08 program with a focus on clinical trials and research. It recommends deploying libraries and librarians as trusted access points that help the public find and interpret research information; extending these resources to rural and historically underserved areas as entry points for digital trial methods and study recruitment; improving the utility of ClinicalTrials.gov through electronic health record integration for point-of-care trial matching, more complete eligibility criteria, plain-language trial summaries, and machine-readable protocol templates; and providing educational resources on the responsible and practical use of AI technologies. The comment urges NLM to foster an AI-ready research information ecosystem grounded in data interoperability standards, computable metadata, benchmark datasets, FAIR research outputs, and systems that protect personal health information.